The Epstein Cover-up Must End

Trump knows more than he has ever let on

Donald Trump has continually downplayed his relationship with child rapist and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He has denied knowing anything about the pedophile operation preying on hundreds of girls and women, despite telling New York magazine in 2002, “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” By 2019, Trump had changed his tune. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

Trump and his lackeys in the Justice Department have done everything possible to hinder the release of the files. Despite a law passed and signed by him, the Justice Department has not released all the files, has redacted names of conspirators and perpetrators, and has improperly released names and nude images of the victims.

Now we learn — to nobody’s surprise — that Trump apparently knew much more about Epstein far earlier than he has let on. ABC News reports:

A former Palm Beach, Florida, police chief who investigated Jeffrey Epstein in the mid-2000s told the FBI he had received a call from Donald Trump at the time to say “thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this,” according to an FBI account of an interview with the ex-police chief in 2019. . . .

President Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes and has said that he cut off contact with his former friend more than 20 years ago.

The report contradicts his (and other famous men’s) professed ignorance of any wrongdoing:

“TRUMP told him people in New York knew EPSTEIN was disgusting. TRUMP said [GHISLAINE] MAXWELL was EPSTEIN’s operative, ‘she is evil and to focus on her,’ the report continues. “TRUMP told [Reiter] that he was around EPSTEIN once when teenagers were present and TRUMP ‘got the hell out of there.’ TRUMP was one of the very first people to call when people found out that they were investigating EPSTEIN,” the report of Reiter’s statement said.

This should trigger an onslaught of elevated public alarm, with serious legacy media covering Trump’s involvement with the worst pedophile in history. There should be incessant calls for Trump to testify under oath about what he knew, when he knew it, and who else knew what was going on. (Just one example: if he knew Maxwell was “evil” for over a decade, why did he say in 2019 he “wished her well”?) In any normal timeline, Trump, along with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche (who has facilitated the cover-up and coddled Maxwell), would be facing demands for impeachment.

Trump is not the only one who misled the public about his connection to Epstein. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as recently as last year, denied having any contact with Epstein after 2005. Under questioning from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) on Tuesday, however, Lutnick admitted that in 2012, he went to Epstein’s island (with his wife, kids, and nannies).

It did not end there, as the New York Times reports:

The files also contain documents showing that Mr. Epstein expressed an interest in 2013 in meeting Mr. Lutnick’s nanny and had her résumé sent to him. Mr. Lutnick said Tuesday that he did not know if the nanny had met Mr. Epstein, or if she was one of the nannies Mr. Lutnick had brought to the island, adding he “had no idea what that was about.”

Van Hollen wasted no time in rightly accusing Lutnick of “totally misrepresent[ing]” his contact with Epstein. “The information recently revealed shows that you had interactions with Epstein over 13 years, including long after he was convicted of soliciting the prostitution of a minor,” Van Hollen added. “That does call into question your credibility and fitness for the job.” Democrats including Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), and a single Republican, Rep. Tom Massie (KY), have called on Lutnick to quit or be fired.

Congress must get more serious about pursuing the truth. Andrew Weissmann makes the case in Just Security that Congress should take Maxwell’s bogus 5^th Amendment claim off the table with a grant of immunity and compel her to testify. In addition, Weissmann argues:

Congress can use its subpoena power to track down all known email accounts of Epstein, Maxwell and their staff, for starters. It can then turn to the numerous people who enabled his crimes, wittingly or unwittingly. That investigation may reveal wrongdoing or complicity by Democrats and Republicans. That is what apolitical investigations do. …

When law enforcement obtains the contents of an email account, the emails won’t discriminate by party affiliation, unless the participants did. And we know with Epstein, he didn’t. Steve Bannon and Larry Summers, for instance, were both in his orbit. The DOJ investigation may be intended to be partisan, but it could result in revelation of bipartisan incrimination.

Fortunately, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) went to the floor on Tuesday to reveal the names of co-conspirators whose names have been redacted. It’s time for all the names of those associated with Epstein to be made public, as the law requires.

The appalling lack of action and outrage over the elite men involved with Epstein (whether they committed crimes or knew of crimes or normalized him after his plea deal) stands in dramatic contrast to European governments, which have booted out of office one politician after another. (The British government teeters on the brink of a severe crisis over the ongoing relationship between Epstein and Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. ambassador to the United States.)

Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) observed earlier this week, “People are losing their jobs in England right now, it is a huge political scandal there.” He added: “I’m just afraid that the general coarsening and degradation of American life has somehow conditioned people not to take this as seriously as we should be taking it.”

Given the MAGA protection racket, the sloth of the media, and the catatonic Congress, we may not get all the facts out until there are Democratic majorities in the House and Senate willing to use their power to uncover every bit of available evidence.

In the meantime, Bondi and Blanche should not be practicing law, let alone serving in the highest ranks of a now thoroughly discredited department. Moreover, a party unwilling to pursue justice for Epstein’s survivors and boot out predators, those who facilitated or normalized his crimes, and those who lied or covered up for them, does not deserve to hold power — now or ever.